Trump: Take the Guns First. Due Process Later.

Donald Trump at a meeting with bipartisan members of Congress.
Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

In a meeting with lawmakers from both parties to discuss gun control and school safety Wednesday, President Trump supported suggestions from Democrats, while disagreeing with Republicans and boasting about his willingness to buck the NRA.

Among the gun-control measures Trump supported were strengthening background checks, raising the minimum gun-purchasing age to 21, and taking guns away from people deemed a threat before getting a court order.

“A lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court to get the due process procedures,” Trump said. “Take the guns first, go through due process second.”

Trump also shot down one of the biggest priorities for the GOP and National Rifle Association as it relates to guns: conceal-carry reciprocity, which would allow those with a license to carry a concealed weapon in one state to carry in any state. When House Majority Whip Steve Scalise brought up the policy, Trump said he supported it but that it should come later as a stand-alone bill.

Trump also mocked GOP senator Pat Toomey for not raising the the gun-buying age to 21 in a bill with Democratic senator Joe Manchin. “You’re afraid of the NRA,” Trump said.

Trump, on the other hand, said he’s willing to go against the gun group. “I’m a fan of the NRA,” he said. “There’s no bigger fan. I’m a big fan of the NRA. These are great people, these great patriots. They love our country. But that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything.”

Trump also returned to some of the ideas he’s suggested in the wake of the Florida school shooting earlier this month, bemoaning violent media and endorsing “hardened” schools.

The odds are that the mercurial Trump, who is famous for shifting positions on issues he isn’t passionate about (which is most of them), will find himself taking a different stance soon. But despite the jumbled mess of ideas, Trump urged lawmakers to figure out a way to put all of the measures together in one bill. Of course, such a bill would be difficult to pass, but Trump said he was eager to try.

“I like that responsibility,” he said. “I really do. It’s time that a president step up.”

#BREAKING: I’m told the entire @BPDAlerts Emergency Response Team has resigned from the team, a total of 57 officers, as a show of support for the officers who are suspended without pay after shoving Martin Gugino, 75. They are still employed, but no longer on ERT. @news4buffalo

In case you were wondering about the unmarked federal agents dotting Washington

Few sights from the nation’s protests in recent days have seemed more dystopian than the appearance of rows of heavily armed riot police around Washington, D.C., in drab military-style uniforms with no insignia, identifying emblems or names badges. Many of the apparently federal agents have refused to identify which agency they work for. “Tell us who you are, identify yourselves!” protesters demanded, as they stared down the helmeted, sunglass-wearing mostly white men outside the White House. Eagle-eyed protesters have identified some of them as belonging to Bureau of Prisons’ riot police units from Texas, but others remain a mystery.

The images of such heavily armed, military-style men in America’s capital are disconcerting, in part, because absent identifying signs of actual authority the rows of federal officers appear all-but indistinguishable from the open-carrying, white militia members cos-playing as survivalists who have gathered in other recent protests against pandemic stay-at-home orders. Some protesters have compared the anonymous armed officers to Russia’s “Little Green Men,” the soldiers-dressed-up-as-civilians who invaded and occupied western Ukraine. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to President Donald Trump Thursday demanding that federal officers identify themselves and their agency.

To understand the police forces ringing Trump and the White House it helps to understand the dense and not-entirely-sensical thicket of agencies that make up the nation’s civilian federal law enforcement. With little public attention, notice and amid historically lax oversight, those ranks have surged since 9/11—growing by roughly 2,500 officers annually every year since 2000. To put it another way: Every year since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the federal government has added to its policing ranks a force larger than the entire Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).